FAQ

It's named after one of the songs used in the film, "Brasil" by Ary Barroso. The lyrics are about a happy, dream-like life that starkly contrasts with the dystopic society on display in the film.

From the Brazil FAQ v1.3: "Ducts are pervasive throughout the film. These symbolize both the umbilical relationship of the people to their centralized government and the loss of aesthetics in our cities."

From the Brazil FAQ v1.3: "The samurai is a huge, monolithic, powerful machine, and is assumed to represent technology." Sam finds his own face behind the mask, which reveals that he was a willing participant in the governmental monstrosity. In the director's commentary, Terry Gilliam suggests that representing Sam's dual nature as such was a play on the word "samurai" by the screenwriter Tom Stoppard--samurai can be read as SAM-U-R-I (Sam, you are I).

From the Brazil FAQ v1.3: "Gilliam's mother once sent him a mask like that, and it haunted him ever since. Gilliam intended the effect of combining the masks and the decaying bodies of the Forces of Darkness (the small, troll-like creatures which Sam sees in his dreams) to be an intermingling of the beginning and ends of life."

From the Brazil FAQ v1.3: "An executive decision maker. . . it has a plunger that can fall to one side of a divider, landing on "YES" or "NO"."